It is well established in the art to produce hard and soft contact lenses in an automated production process with reusable moulds. Depending on the material from which the contact lens is made, and in accordance with the production method applied the contact lens must be immersed in treatment fluids or solutions, for example extraction solutions, and/or rinsing solutions and/or coating solutions in order to obtain the desired product, which may be worn in direct contact with the customer's eyes. During these process steps it must be ascertained that the entire contact lens is sufficiently wetted with the respective solution and that enough fresh solution comes into contact with the lens during the treatment time. On the other hand it must be avoided that the surfaces and/or the edge of the contact lens are affected in an adverse manner during treatment, or that the entire contact lens even gets lost in one of the solution baths.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a container for the accommodation of a contact lens during treatments, for example extraction and/or rinsing and/or coating processes in which the contact lens is safely and gently retained, but at the same time is freely exposed to the treatment solution(s). The container enables an easy insertion into and removal of the contact lens from the container during the production process using automated transfer means and tools. A re-usable container shall be provided which is capable of being manufactured in a reproducible process, yielding containers with identical or essentially identical properties, in order to ascertain that the contact lenses accommodated therein during an automated production process are subjected to identical conditions. Preferably the container shall be capable of being manufactured by well established mass production processes.